It'd be really interesting if a country would try a voting age reform that _wasn't_ Vote16, because then there'd be data about an alternative.
For example, if there were a country willing to take David Runciman's suggestion of lowering the voting age to 6, we could see whether an individual's lifespan volume of civic engagement is a 'nature or nurture' phenomenon. If a country were willing to try lowering the voting age to 14 coupled with allowing legal guardians to participate in under-14s vote-casting, that'd generate highly useful information about campaign messaging, guardian/child engagement strategies, policymaking impacts, party platforms, and so forth. If yet another polity would try the approach of eliminating the minimum voting age barrier, we'd see when and how political markets would form around young children and their families and caregivers. The background context of either having universal civic duty voting (or not) would add color to these findings. In Australia in the 90's, it was thought that the messaging around lowering the voting age fared worse then it might otherwise have, due to the compulsory voting context. However, there are countries where voting is compulsory only for a middle age band (not required 16-18, nor over an age in the mid-60s). It's possible to infer some likely impacts under these different possible scenarios, though I'd really want to see empirical evidence.
We might expect that countries which enfranchise more of their populations would achieve higher rates of public health and happiness metrics due to feedback between voters and policymakers. I wonder: does the data about woman suffrage support this? If so, might the international philanthropic community be interested in advancing children's suffrage in several countries simultaneously? Countries might compete to improve childhoods, or would-be parents might have higher birth rates in politically-favorable countries. I wonder: how much value do national citizens place on enabling the birth of another citizen of their nation? How might this value compare with the cost of child-rearing on the national purse? Likely inter-national migratory patterns will persist..
One more thing - whether Vote16 slows the further reduction of voting age in nations or not will be an interesting point to consider. Iran might be the only country that has lowered the voting age a few times before then raising it again a notch. From memory, there are few countries with voting ages higher than 18 at the moment. I can think of just a few counterexamples, and sometimes this is just for one office such as the higher chamber in a bicameral legislature, as with Italy, which is implementing a reduction from 25 to 18. Was Malaysia the other recent example of 21->18? Yes that's the one: https://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/malaysia-lowers-voting-age-18-033810151.html It'd be notable if instead one of these countries had managed to reduce voting age from above the world average down to the leading lower edge of the world voting age range, without first needing to settle for an intermediary age step.
Whereas the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely-ratified treaty, signed by all but the United States, and the UN CRC defines 'child' as being under-18-years-old, it's been fascinating to note in the German, US, and Canadian campaigns how adultist the messaging is about motivations for lowering the voting age to 16. There's a cautionary note from the US Vote18 movement fifty years ago that all but two states soon after the 26th Amendment was ratified the lowered their age of majority (and therefore the new young voters' claims to support from legal guardians, with exception for university tuition financial aid calculations). A reference for that is Jenny Diamond Cheng's paper beginning "Unintended Consequences." She's a scholar at Vanderbilt now. She has combed through the congressional record about 26th Amendment debate and asserts that campaigns distinctly tried to avoid messing with the age of majority, trying to uncouple it from the minimum voting age. So, it'd be highly interesting to note whether a larger enfranchisement of younger people could avoid shifting the age of majority for criminal responsibility, etc.
See also CRIN's discussion paper on minimum ages, which addresses several types through a children's rights lens.
Always nice to have a thought partner. This great substack has me wondering whether I ought to start one, too. Thanks, Sam!
Looking forward to seeing what you'll write next :) especially if you take some time to read from www.childrenvoting.org/resources
Love this comment Robin! FWIW, I think the Childen's Voting Colloquium is a great example of how global solidarity and idea sharing can help introduce new bold ideas about democracy into public debate.
Strategically, I really like your focus on finding the right context to try a dramatically lowered or abolished voting age. I'm not sure what place in the world is the right place but that is a great question to think about in the colloquium.
Not that it won't take a lot of coalescing and coalition-building, however the type of narrative advanced in this event description suggests to me that the time may be ripe in the next 5-7 years for a state or municipality of the United States.
Thanks for writing this, Sam.
It'd be really interesting if a country would try a voting age reform that _wasn't_ Vote16, because then there'd be data about an alternative.
For example, if there were a country willing to take David Runciman's suggestion of lowering the voting age to 6, we could see whether an individual's lifespan volume of civic engagement is a 'nature or nurture' phenomenon. If a country were willing to try lowering the voting age to 14 coupled with allowing legal guardians to participate in under-14s vote-casting, that'd generate highly useful information about campaign messaging, guardian/child engagement strategies, policymaking impacts, party platforms, and so forth. If yet another polity would try the approach of eliminating the minimum voting age barrier, we'd see when and how political markets would form around young children and their families and caregivers. The background context of either having universal civic duty voting (or not) would add color to these findings. In Australia in the 90's, it was thought that the messaging around lowering the voting age fared worse then it might otherwise have, due to the compulsory voting context. However, there are countries where voting is compulsory only for a middle age band (not required 16-18, nor over an age in the mid-60s). It's possible to infer some likely impacts under these different possible scenarios, though I'd really want to see empirical evidence.
We might expect that countries which enfranchise more of their populations would achieve higher rates of public health and happiness metrics due to feedback between voters and policymakers. I wonder: does the data about woman suffrage support this? If so, might the international philanthropic community be interested in advancing children's suffrage in several countries simultaneously? Countries might compete to improve childhoods, or would-be parents might have higher birth rates in politically-favorable countries. I wonder: how much value do national citizens place on enabling the birth of another citizen of their nation? How might this value compare with the cost of child-rearing on the national purse? Likely inter-national migratory patterns will persist..
One more thing - whether Vote16 slows the further reduction of voting age in nations or not will be an interesting point to consider. Iran might be the only country that has lowered the voting age a few times before then raising it again a notch. From memory, there are few countries with voting ages higher than 18 at the moment. I can think of just a few counterexamples, and sometimes this is just for one office such as the higher chamber in a bicameral legislature, as with Italy, which is implementing a reduction from 25 to 18. Was Malaysia the other recent example of 21->18? Yes that's the one: https://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/malaysia-lowers-voting-age-18-033810151.html It'd be notable if instead one of these countries had managed to reduce voting age from above the world average down to the leading lower edge of the world voting age range, without first needing to settle for an intermediary age step.
Whereas the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely-ratified treaty, signed by all but the United States, and the UN CRC defines 'child' as being under-18-years-old, it's been fascinating to note in the German, US, and Canadian campaigns how adultist the messaging is about motivations for lowering the voting age to 16. There's a cautionary note from the US Vote18 movement fifty years ago that all but two states soon after the 26th Amendment was ratified the lowered their age of majority (and therefore the new young voters' claims to support from legal guardians, with exception for university tuition financial aid calculations). A reference for that is Jenny Diamond Cheng's paper beginning "Unintended Consequences." She's a scholar at Vanderbilt now. She has combed through the congressional record about 26th Amendment debate and asserts that campaigns distinctly tried to avoid messing with the age of majority, trying to uncouple it from the minimum voting age. So, it'd be highly interesting to note whether a larger enfranchisement of younger people could avoid shifting the age of majority for criminal responsibility, etc.
See also CRIN's discussion paper on minimum ages, which addresses several types through a children's rights lens.
Always nice to have a thought partner. This great substack has me wondering whether I ought to start one, too. Thanks, Sam!
Looking forward to seeing what you'll write next :) especially if you take some time to read from www.childrenvoting.org/resources
Gnight,
Robin
Love this comment Robin! FWIW, I think the Childen's Voting Colloquium is a great example of how global solidarity and idea sharing can help introduce new bold ideas about democracy into public debate.
Strategically, I really like your focus on finding the right context to try a dramatically lowered or abolished voting age. I'm not sure what place in the world is the right place but that is a great question to think about in the colloquium.
Thanks, Sam!
Not that it won't take a lot of coalescing and coalition-building, however the type of narrative advanced in this event description suggests to me that the time may be ripe in the next 5-7 years for a state or municipality of the United States.
https://carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu/event/holding-together-hijacking-rights-america-and-how-reclaim-them-everyone-book-launch